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Identity Theft

Posted on May 5, 2013 by Tiffiny Fayerweather — No Comments ↓

Nothing is more annoying than having your credit card shut down for fraud, especially if it’s a business card. In this day and age it is getting easier and easier for criminals to clone or steal your information to use it for their own gain. So how do you protect yourself from becoming a victim?

The following tips will help you to protect your business, your employees, and your customers from becoming victims of identity theft.

  • Create and follow a security strategy in your business plan.
  • Designate a top level manager to implement the plan if you become a victim.
  • If you need assistance in designing a plan, enlist an expert.
  • Protect your business records on file with the Ohio Secretary of State by taking the following steps:
  • Assign a trusted person to be responsible for maintaining and monitoring your business record with the Secretary of State.
  • Sign up for e-mail notification about changes to your business record.
  • Sign up for Secure Business Filing.
Read more ›

Posted in Business Management, Employee Management, Financial, Security, Uncategorized

Get Your Fax Straight

Posted on April 29, 2013 by Tiffiny Fayerweather — No Comments ↓

If you own a fax machine chances are you have received numerous amounts of offers from companies wanting to sell you vacations, excel classes and employee handbooks. More than likely you ignore them or call the number to be removed from their list.

It’s easy to ignore the outrageous prices when you know it’s a scam, but what about the scam that comes in the form of an official looking invoice to renew your domain name?

Domain name renewal scams can work in one of two ways. You might be sent an invoice for a domain name that is very similar to your current domain name – the scammer hopes that you don’t notice the difference and just pay the invoice.

Alternatively, you could be sent a letter that looks like a renewal notice for your actual domain name, but is from a different company to the one you have previously used to register your domain name.

So how do you protect your business from falling for the domain name scam?

Read more ›

Posted in Financial, Security, Uncategorized

Emergency Preparedness

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Tiffiny Fayerweather — No Comments ↓

Are you and your staff prepared for an emergency? Sure, you have your emergency evacuation paper taped to different areas of your office, but what if other situations arrive? Emergency planning and training directly influence the outcome of an emergency situation. Having a written procedure and plan can mean the difference between chaos and control.

I found some information on the National Fire Protection Association web site. Here are a few items from their list:

  • Emergency Escape Procedures and Emergency Escape Route Assignments. 
  • Procedures for Employees Who Remain on Site after the Alarm Sounds. 
  • Procedures to Account for Employees
  • Procedures for Reporting Emergencies.
  • Contacts for Further Information
  • Alarm Systems
  • Procedure for media attention
Read more ›

Posted in Business Planning, Employee Management, Security, Uncategorized

It Is Not Just A Phone Any More

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Jeff Mendelsohn — No Comments ↓

What do you do if your cell phone is lost or stolen? You might just write it off and go buy a new one, after all it is just a cell phone.   Unfortunately, it isn’t just a cell phone any more as we tend to keep bank info, his credit card info, emails and other personal information. A criminal would have access to all that info and the crime just turned into identity theft.

We tend to forget we get a special price for a phone when we sign up for a two year contract. That $200 phone is actually $550. Which is a hefty price to pay for just a cell phone. But fear not, there are things you can do to protect yourself and get your phone back with a little bit of planning and a single app.

 

Read more ›

Posted in Security

Hacked Website. Who’s Responsible?

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Jeff Mendelsohn — No Comments ↓

An interesting question was ask to me the other day.

When a website is hacked/compromised who is responsible for fixing it/paying for it to be fixed?

From the customers standpoint the answer is clear. The web designer has to cover it. But from the standpoint of a web designer, the answer is not that clear.

There are many variables due to contracts, situations, and lack of knowledge. So who is responsible for fixing it/paying for it to be fixed?

Some of the variables are:

  • Code
  • Servers
  • Software
  • Users and their passwords
  • Last updates
  • Contracts 

What are you doing right now to protect your website? Let us know what works for you.

Read more ›

Posted in Security

Sending Mass Emails

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Jeff Mendelsohn — No Comments ↓

I don’t have to tell you that email spam is still a huge problem. I receive more spam in a day than good email in a week. Part of the spam comes from other people’s lack of knowledge when handling email addresses. A few times a month I receive a mass email from fellow business [Read More]

Posted in Business Improvement, Customer Service & Culture, Security

Simple Facts about Copyright in the United States

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Linda Fayerweather — No Comments ↓

In this fast moving world copyright is a popular subject. Before we get to some particulars, the U.S. law was updated in 1977 and if you create it, the copyright is yours for your life plus 50 years. If the copyright is owned by your employer, it is 75 years from the date of publication [Read More]

Posted in Security

The Domain Name Scam

Posted on February 18, 2012 by Jeff Mendelsohn — No Comments ↓

Today I would like to talk about a little known but prolific scam that I’ve been asked about several times within the last few months. The scam has to do with domain name registration and domain name “services”.
What is a domain name?
A domain name is the core of that alpha-numeric string you type in your [Read More]

Posted in Security

What do you mean Email isn’t Secure?

Posted on February 4, 2012 by Jeff Mendelsohn — No Comments ↓

A few weeks ago my business friend, Steve told me he was signing up for a conference that I might be interested in attending. It’s a national conference hosted by a pretty big company. Upon checking out the conference I thought it would be a pretty good conference to attend. I clicked the register link [Read More]

Posted in Security
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